Item Data
- Collection Title: Mary Lu Lewis Collection
- Item Title: Audre Lorde Talks with Mary Lu Lewis, 1 of 2
- ID Number: MLL-001
- Date Range: 9-28-1975
- Description: Womanist observer Mary Lu Lewis interviews Audre Lorde in her hotel room after the Broadside Press 10th Anniversary Celebration, September 1975.
- Biographical/Historical Note: Audre Lorde bio: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/audre-lorde
Michelle and Mary Lou had only known each other two weeks at that point.
Michelle Citron is an award-winning media artist whose work includes Cocktails & Appetizers, Mixed Greens, and As American As Apple Pie (collected at www.queerfeast.com) and Daughter Rite, Parthenogenesis, What You Take For Granted…, Leftovers, and Lives:Visible. She is the author of the award-winning book, Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions. Her work explores the lives of women as well as ethnic identity. She’s screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Art/Chicago, as well as festivals worldwide. Her films are distributed by Women Make Movies.
Mary Lu Lewis would describe herself only as "a womanist observer."
- Genres: Interview, Documentary
- Places: Detroit, Michigan
- Access & Use: Contact Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) info@lesbianhomemovieproject.org. No re-use without permission. LHMP must contact film donor & participants with regard to any re-use.
- Color or B&W: B&W
- Related Versions:
- Running Time:
- Rights: Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) hols all rights
- Sound: Sound
- Subjects: Audre Lorde, Lesbian, , Feminism, Poetry
- Creators: Mary Lu Lewis, Interviewer
Michelle Citron, Cameraperson
- Collaborators & Participants: Audre Lorde
If you appear or can identify anyone at the opening party or if you know the whereabouts of the other interviews Mary Lu Lewis and Michelle Citron taped during Broadside Press' 10th Anniversary in 1975, please get in touch with us at info@lesbianhomemovieproject.org
- Source Format: 1/2" open reel tape
- Format: Original format, 1/2" open reel tape, initially transferred to VHS tape & then digitized into compressed & uncompressed files. Title & closing slates added in 2017.
- Viewing Log: Conference participants enjoy a buffet. Outside shot. Lawn, chairs, tables. Water beyond. The buffet party again. A fireplace. 02:23 Hotel sitting room. Audre Lorde on the left, Mary Lu Lewis on the right. They're both eating. Lorde and Lewis enjoy a wide-ranging conversation while eating, drinking, and smoking. Michelle Citron kibitzes a little from behind the camera.
Upon watching the tapes again after 30 years, Michelle Citron commented: "How startling and strong Audre was and what a good interviewer Mary Lu is, creating a space for Audre to roam free with her thoughts. It also brought back memories of both these wonderful and amazing women who opened their lives to me and became my friends."